Arthur could not resist the impulse to throw mud at his bare
back.
"Stop that!" yelled Smith.
"You make me!" taunted Wellesley.
"You just wait till I come out," replied his victim.
"Dare you to come," said Arthur.
Bob promptly waded out, and they "mixed." Just which boy got the better
of it is not clear, but if justice ruled, the future conqueror of
Napoleon should have received his first trouncing.
One other fight is recorded of his early schooldays--and this does not
mean that Arthur was naturally of a pugnacious disposition, for he
wasn't. It simply means that one's battles, little or big, are always
remembered, rather than the pleasant though colorless ways of peace.
On a visit home he got into an argument with a blacksmith's boy, named
Hughes. In this instance, might was right. The smith's muscles were
the brawnier, and the Etonian got soundly licked--that is, if we can
take the word of Hughes who was wont to boast in later years that he
beat the man who beat Napoleon!
At Eton came the usual question which confronts every boy in his
teens--the choice of a business or profession. His mother did not
think he was good for anything. In writing of her children, about this
time, she says:
"They are all, I think, endowed with excellent abilities, except
Arthur, and he would probably not be wanting, if only there was more
energy in his nature; but he is so wanting in this respect, that I
really do not know what to do with him.
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